The "Backstory"

From early beginnings...

Graphic Design has been a hobby of mine since as kids we started using "Printshop" on the apple IIe and commodore 64 to make funny birthday cards.

Later we started to test out the new photograph filters in the first releases of Photoshop. The emboss effect seemed to be a favorite in the engineering lab for whatever reason. Next we started really laying things out with the newly developed Quark, Pagemaker, and Publisher software titles. We would send these files to print knowing that there was about a 50% chance that something would crash in the process.

Universtity of Wyoming and the Summer Project

During this time computer aided graphic design was really just beginning and I never really thought of it so much as an occupation. So instead I did my undergraduate schooling in Chemical Engineering. Oddly enough it was during this time that I received my first paid gig as a graphic designer. On assignment from my engineering professor for my summer project I was asked to develop undergraduate and graduate "programs" for distribution to the new incoming students.

Arizona State University

I then came to ASU for my graduate degree in BioMedical Engineering where in addition to my research I was offered the task of building a website, designing a logo, and making some hats for the emerging lab that I was a part of. It was during this time that I also took on a hobby project of producing artwork for a CD that we had working on. Here began my love/hate relationship with Apple. Most of the younger guys love Apple because they work so perfectly. I wish I could take them back with me to help rebuild files that I lost every time my Mac would freeze.

Church and Community

From there my wife and I began working at Desert Springs Church (now "theSprings") where they needed signs, banners, shirts, a website, and a myriad of other marketing collateral. We took on a couple of projects at a time and just figured out one thing at a time. We designed our first cut vinyl decals during this time and in the process began learning Illustrator and finding out what it meant to produce "vector art".

2002 Launch

In 2002 we launched the company more formally as Bended Knee Design from our house in Chandler and began to help others in our community that had similar needs.

Over the last 12 years we have secured our position in the area as a designer and printer that is reliable, maintaining high standards for quality production, and continuing to be sensitive to our price points in the market. We are also committed to learning and expanding our knowledge base so that we can continue to suggest the best options available to our customers.

3 Priorities: Understand | Design | Produce

We have three priorities when it comes to helping our customers navigate through a project:

Understand the wants and needs; giving clear expectations and available options.

Design using professional tools and proven communication principles while maintaining submission to the client's directives.

Produce quality products, on time, and within the given budget.

Core Business Principles: People are more important than invoices and mistakes do happen.

People are always more important than the projects and the invoices. We are a relationship driven group. The majority of our clients are also our friends.

Mistakes will happen and perfection is illusive: we will be quick to forgive, quick to apologize, and quick to move forward and keep things moving along.

We are at the core - solutions providers. We have a variety of experiences that we can lean on to help solve the situation of the day. We will tend to approach each project from not only a creative side, but also an engineering side. I think it makes for a good balance to come up with a solution that is creative, logical, and practical.

Thank you to all of you that have been with
us through
the years, letting us experiment with your products and believing in us to come up with something that works. What should we work on today?

Real love isn't our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven.